POSTED: 5:59 p.m. PDT May 19, 2003

Micki Flowers
KIRO 7 Eyewitness News Health Reporter

It's not your typical cancer treatment, but more and more patients are trying ancient Chinese medicine to get their health back.

As more people are turning to alternative cancer therapies, acupuncture is getting more attention from the medical establishment.

A Seattle woman says ancient Chinese therapies helped her on the road to recovery.

Jennifer Dwyer has been cancer-free for four years and believes Chinese medicine played a major role in her healing.

"Had someone told me 'Six years from now, you're going to be using Chinese herbs and acupuncture to keep your immune system healthy,' I would have said 'You are crazy.' I am not that kind of a person," Dwyer said.

Yet when there was evidence cancer had returned to her abdomen for the third time in a few years, she started getting acupuncture at the same time as chemotherapy.

By the third week, the nausea was gone -- a 180-degree turn in how she felt for her first round of chemo.

After the treatment, she continued the acupuncture and started taking Chinese herbs to boost her immune system.

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The benefits of acupuncture for nausea and certain chronic pain are pretty well-documented here in the U.S., but we haven't researched the herbs much, even though they go hand-in-hand with acupuncture in China.

"They're just now starting Chinese herbal studies, studies in the west that meet the NIH standard," said Steven Given, an acupuncturist and Chinese herbalist at Bastyr University.

By comparison, there are 17 acupuncture studies funded by the National Institutes of Health at the moment and two on Chinese herbs.

"Institutional research boards have been reticent to approve studies that involve patients taking Chinese herbs," Given said.

That reticence in part stems from the fact that the herbal industry is not regulated. Still, it is likely to be a focus of study in the near future as more Americans choose alternative therapies.